May 15, 2013

Business Roundtable Enlists Wilmer to Lobby on Trade

The leading association of U.S.
chief executive officers has turned to an international trade lawyer at Wilmer
Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr for lobbying assistance in Washington, according
to lobbying registration paperwork filed with Congress on Tuesday.

Business Roundtable has hired Wilmer
counsel David Ross to lobby for it on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreements. President Barack
Obama announced in his State of the Union address in February that his
administration intends to start talks on transatlantic free trade, while the
United States and nine other nations already are participating in discussions
for the pan-Pacific free trade pact.

Ross also is advocating for Business
Roundtable on the reauthorization of the trade promotion authority, the White
House's power to send trade deals to Congress for expedited approval. The
authority expired in 2007.

A member of Wilmer's international
trade, investment and market access practice, Ross previously served as
international trade counsel to the Senate Finance Committee's Republicans and
associate general counsel in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Ross said he hasn't started lobbying
yet for Business Roundtable. But Ross reiterated that he will focus on trade
policy.

Despite a 402-lawyer Washington
office that put it at No. 4 on the 2012 Legal Times 150 survey of the D.C.
area's largest law offices, Wilmer does very little lobbying. During the first
quarter of this year, Wilmer only lobbied for Northeastern University and
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co., which paid the firm a total of
$50,000, according to congressional records. Partner Jay Urwitz handled the
accounts.

Business Roundtable spent $2.8
million on federal lobbying during the first quarter of this year. For its
advocacy efforts, the group used its own staffers, as well as lobbyists from
more than a dozen firms. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher; Davis & Harman; and
Greenberg Traurig were among them.

The association, which counts more
than 200 CEOs as members, already has lobbied this year for the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership agreements, as
well as the renewal of the trade promotion authority. Business Roundtable
President John Engler said in February that the trade matters are priorities
for his organization.

"Expanding America's access to
international markets is, we think, vital for the U.S. economy," he said.